This invention relates to a computer-driven and implemented information management system; and more specifically, to an information management system for selectively matching or qualifying third-party information providers within a specific knowledge domain to the preferred characteristics sought by the user using a general purpose networkable computer workstation having a central processor unit, memory, a graphics user interface and a pointer control device and input keyboard. Although this unique method can be applied to many knowledge domains, such as Human Resources including Employee Recruiting and Promotions, Procurement Opportunity Gathering, Event Scoring, Multi-source Content Searching and Ranking, and the like, the present description will be limited to vendor selection and qualification for large corporate clients having thousands of different vendors who are providing millions of dollars of goods and services to the user throughout the world.
The present invention allows a user, who may be purchasing agent in the specific example used herein, to selectively review and rank vendors interested in selling goods and services to the user's company based upon vendor input to user created questions within a specific knowledge domain or by query to existing databases of specific vendor information. Each knowledge domain would be specific to the diverse needs of the user and the vendor within the market for the vendor's product or service. For example, a large car manufacturer might seek inquiries from electrical vendors of electrical connections and suppliers of galvanized steel sheets and would be able to not only find suppliers based on information previously provided and defined rankings, but would be able to create new queries using existing criteria or pose new questions that are specific to his needs. Each supply area would provide unique and critical criteria for choice. Information critical to the selection of an electrical supply vendor would not be compatible with the information necessary to obtain from the galvanized steel supplier, although common criteria such as geographic location of the supplier and financial stability of the supplier—can often overlap.
This invention provides a method of creating and using a specific knowledge domain database to query individual vendors within a specific knowledge domain to select those who meet or exceed the criteria created by selection criteria. The query can be designed either upon submission or taken from a knowledge base database. This selection method can be implemented to acquire information and correspond to users and vendors over the internet to allow rapid response and selection when time is crucial to the selection and implementation of the selection.